The Heroes of Westfall

Sid

Description:

Sid is a 7’8” goliath who reminds people of a mountain on the move. He weighs in at 320 lbs and almost impossibly broad shoulders and a barrel chest. The standing joke among Sid’s friends is that he is a giant dwarf.

Sid seems preoccupied a lot of the time. His mood is erratic – sometimes he is happy and talkative, other times he is angry and aggressive, occasionally he is so withdrawn as to be non-responsive. Carries several small pouches of herbs with him, which he replenishes in wilderness settings. In city settings, he will occasionally slip out alone late at night to meet various NPCs.

In addition to his goliath mottling, Sid is covered with tattoos and piercings from his years at sea and as a roadie for Blood Gnoll. The tattoos are various, and include no less than 19 female names. When asked about these names, Sid tells dramatic and often hilarious stories, but rarely the same one twice. (There is also one male name, Cheryth, on his butt. That is a whole other story.)

But one tattoo is different from the others. Above his heart in a semi-circle is what look like six letters in dark red. Some of Sid’s educated friends tell him the letters are primordial, but not any word they know. In addition, the whole group is surrounded by a vague swirling pattern which is difficult to see clearly. It seems to resist coming into focus. Sid has no idea where this tattoo came from. He never remembers not having it. But then there are a lot of things Sid doesn’t remember.

Bio:

Sid has no memories of his early childhood, and is not really sure how old he is. People told him he was 9 or 10 years old, but that was judging by height before they figured out he was a goliath. (Sid now guesses that he was probably only 4 or 5, so he suspects he must have been born near the end of the War.)

His first memories are of scrabbling for food in the slums of Westfall as a young child 25 years ago. He remembers being hungry all the time and was often near death from exposure and starvation. But even then, he found it difficult to eat all of what he scrounged without sharing it with kids that were even worse off. Eventually when he grew to the size of an adult human (age 7, he guesses) he got a fairly steady job hauling and chopping meat for a butcher shop. He gathered around him a sort of make-shift family of slum children and became their provider and protector. This little group called themselves “Sid’s Kids” even though some of them were probably older than Sid. Sid first became a fighter defending the food and shelter of “his” kids.

About four years ago, Sid joined a group of adventurers called the Guardian Brotherhood. Thought not too impressive at first, this group eventually saved Westfall from an extremely destructive floating head, and recued Hammerfast from an onslaught of icy hot dwarves (Sid’s a little fuzzy on what happened; he tends to stick to hitting things and getting hit, and leaves the narrative details to the smarter members of the Brotherhood.) Now the name of the Guardian Brotherhood is known across the continent. Sid himself has become a kind of celebrity in his own right, at least among the more lubricated denizens of society. His capacity to withstand alcohol has become almost as famous as his ability to withstand physical damage, and it is hard for him to enter a bar without people shouting out his name. Also, during one of his “lost” periods, he apparently signed away the rights to his image, which is now being used to sell Forgetap Beer far and wide.

Because of Sid’s exploits, the Goliath kingdom gave into his keeping their most precious icon, the Black Blade of Kai-Tan. When Sid touched the blade, two things happened. The blade itself twisted and transformed into a great dwarven urgrosh, and the first letter of the mysterious tattoo over Sid’s heart turned red. Unfortunately, the trust of the Goliath leadership was misplaced. Sid promptly lost the treasure of his people during an extended period of altered consciousness in some mushroom caves. Only the skill and courage of the Guardian Brotherhood was able to help Sid recover the Black Blade.

Nexius, the horned devil, stood, surveying his work. It was glorious.

There were few things more satisfying to him than slaughter, and he had found exactly the right agent to help him in his work – Sid, a dim-witted Goliath from the material plane.

All I have to do is keep this fool drunk, and he’ll do anything I ask, the devil thought to himself. This is perfect.

Currently, Nexius was watching as Sid sliced and hacked his way through a bloody cloud of rage demons; this only a few hours after sharing a few pints of djinn ale with him in Sigil. It would be no time before they were able to force their way into the stronghold of the Balor Blixilus where hopefully Sid would survive just long enough to allow Nexius to sneak in and steal the demon’s prized Nightblade. If the Goliath did not make it out was no concern to the devil, he would have outlived his usefulness at that point anyway. He was keeping Sid around for exactly one reason: distraction.

It had been a long time since Nexius had a true pawn he could manipulate. He had never had one so powerful. It seemed like a waste to use him so quickly and discard him like this, but he had lusted after the Nightblade for so long, it would be even worse to put it off any longer than he had to. He looked down and saw Sid take a long pull from a glowing blue potion, and watched as some of the mortals wounds stitched themselves back together. This Sid was a resourceful one.

The Goliath swung his mighty blade through the midsection of the last demon, and the momentum swung his body around. Sid looked up from his new position to see Nexius standing there, smiling down upon him. The mortal frowned and hefted his blade over his left shoulder and began walking toward the devil. Nexius decided to meet him halfway.

“Sid, my friend. You’ve done well! Soon we will be at the doorstep of Blixilus and you can have your glorious battle.”

Sid stood, staring at him for a moment, puzzling something out in his head. He suddenly lurched, and before the horned devil could react, he swung his blade and gashed open the devil’s chest spilling black blood all over the rocky ground below them.

Nexius fell to the ground in pain.

“I don’t-” He gurgled. “What… why, Sid?”

“Potion must have sobered me up, devil.”

The Goliath again gripped his sword with both hands and sent a crushing blow down upon the devil’s skull. He looked down upon the dead fiend and grumbled to himself.